[00:00:00] Speaker A: As far as who this is for, I, I think it's just if you want the, if you want the planning kind of just taken away from you, you know, and the, the. It's definitely, I mean, there's no roller coasters, there's no climbing walls. There's nothing like that. So it's more of a, a excursion based cruise, if that's what you're after, and a relaxation cruise.
[00:00:37] Speaker B: Welcome back everybody, to this week's episode of the DCL Duo podcast. Brought to you by my Path Unwinding Travel and Sam. Review time. Once again, we got to work on the jingle.
[00:00:46] Speaker C: Review time.
[00:00:47] Speaker B: Review time.
[00:00:49] Speaker D: Yes.
[00:00:49] Speaker B: Yeah, well, that's chart topping gold right there. All right, this one comes from Klein Cruz Cat, who writes best DCL podcast, exclamation point. If you're looking for the best Disney cruise line content, you found it with the DCL Duo. The content is always honest, thorough, smart and savvy. You will be informed and entertained by Brian and Sam and the fantastic guests they often interview for insightful opinions and information.
This podcast is simply the best.
[00:01:16] Speaker C: Oh, simply the best.
All the rest.
[00:01:20] Speaker B: There's our review jingle right there.
I'm going to get the snippet of Simply the Best. We're going to play that from now on at the top of the show. Klein Cruz, Kat, thank you for that fabulous review. I don't think we've been called savvy before, Sam.
[00:01:32] Speaker C: Yeah, smart and savvy. Smart and savvy. I like that.
[00:01:35] Speaker B: I feel learned. All right, so thank you for that review and for all of you out there listening. Of course. As always, one of the easiest ways to help support our show, head over to Apple Podcast, hit those five stars, and if you leave us a written review, we will read it on air at the top of one of our main episodes. I finally got that phrase correct. No stumbling there. It just happened. Sam.
[00:01:54] Speaker C: Yes, we. But don't forget to tell them to like and subscribe on Instagram or Instagram on YouTube.
[00:02:00] Speaker D: You can like and subscribe on Instagram too.
[00:02:01] Speaker B: But if you want to see the video versions of these podcasts, you can head over to YouTube.com that's YouTube.com DCLDUO and you can, yeah, you can watch the show over there that we. The. The audio version goes on our podcast channel. The video version goes out on YouTube. So head over there, check it out. Sam. Throwing it over to you now, though, to. To talk about our fabulous guest.
[00:02:22] Speaker C: Yes, my lights just went off and back on by the way.
But I am super excited. I'M super excited about today's guest, especially because it's a topic we have not covered before, but we haven't had Craig on our show before. So. Welcome to the show, Craig.
[00:02:40] Speaker A: Thank you. I'm very excited to be here.
[00:02:42] Speaker C: Yeah, we're excited to have you. We're going to talk Seabourn Cruises, and I am excited because I know nothing about Seabourn. Obviously, they are. I know they are a luxury cruise line. I know they're smaller ships, but that's about all I know about Seabourn. So I'm super excited to talk to you today. But before we talk about Seabourn, because I know this was your first time sailing with them, we got to hear your, your cruise creds, how many times you've sailed with Disney, because I know that you have sailed with Disney and sort of where your connection to Disney came from.
[00:03:14] Speaker A: Well, my love of Disney and I guess started as a kid.
We weren't parks people when I was a kid, but we were Sunday wonderful world of Disney people. So that was definitely a big, a big event every week.
I was also a huge fan of the, of course, the Disney Renaissance period with all the new animation and everything. That was a big deal.
But I didn't actually go to Disney until I was about 12. We went on a family vacation to Disney World, but after that, I actually never went again until I was in my 20s.
I moved to Southern California and became a Disneyland person. So most of my Disney, I guess the bulk of my Disney experience after that was with Disneyland. So, you know, being in Southern California, it's the local park. It's just something you do on the weekend. And everybody's, you know, bored or whatever. Everybody just jumps in the car. You know, all my friends had passes. So it's just something that we did.
And after that, I went to grad school, actually and left California for grad school. And then after grad school, ended up moving to Florida. And so that's when I got my first Walt Disney World pass.
A few years later, became a DVC member.
So started cruising with the cruise line, but my heart's still kind of at Disneyland.
[00:04:51] Speaker C: Disneyland is our, of course, home park. In fact, I'm wearing my new Disneyland necklace that I just got as well as Disneyland VIP tour shirt today. So I feel like I'm in. In theme. In theme. Our favorite. Now you have sailed at Disney Cruise Line how many times? And I know that you sailed concierge a few times as well.
[00:05:11] Speaker A: Yeah, I just completed my seventh Disney Cruise Line cruise Back in October for Halloween on the high seas.
And I've done two concierge out of the seven and have one in the works as well.
[00:05:31] Speaker C: Very nice, very nice.
[00:05:34] Speaker A: And then also other cruise lines I've been on. My first cruise was actually on Royal Caribbean back in 2012, I believe it was on the. What was the new allure of the season.
And so that was my first experience which was pretty overwhelming to be on.
[00:05:53] Speaker C: A. Oh, that's a huge cruise.
[00:05:54] Speaker A: And our huge ship after that did a few more Royal Caribbean. I've done a Norwegian cruise, did a Celebrity to Alaska.
But my first Disney cruise actually happened just by chance. I was actually at a wedding and some the parents of the bride and we were kind of just chatting them up and afterwards they said, oh, we're going on Disney cruise in two weeks, you should come with us. And I was like, okay.
So we ended up going on that cruise in two weeks and that's kind of got hooked with Disney Cruise after that.
[00:06:31] Speaker C: Wow. That's kind of a last minute, a two week planning period. I like it.
Now tell us. This cruise was on Seabourn. You hadn't sailed Seabourn before. You said you've sailed Royal Norwegian, Celebrity and Disney. So four other lines.
What, what made you decide? I want to try Seabourn. Like what was it? I know it's a med cruise, so obviously it's a cool itinerary, but like, why did you choose Seabourn of all the lines to go on?
[00:07:02] Speaker A: My partner and I, our last cruise that we did was on Alaska was the Celebrity to Alaska before we did Seabourn. And when we did Celebrity, we did the Retreat.
And so it was kind of the ship within the ship kind of concept. And, and we really liked, of course, you know, the, the Celebrity ship that we were on for Alaska was on the, you know, on the large cruise ship size small.
So it was about 2,000 people.
And. And so then we were in the retreat, which made it even smaller because we pretty much just saw the people that were in the retreat most of the time. And so we kind of got this idea that, you know, maybe we're small shit people.
So that's why we started looking into some of the small ships. It wasn't necessarily that we wanted like luxury or all inclusive. That kind of came later when we started researching that, we realized that most of the small ships were pretty all inclusive. In the process of looking for a small ship, that's kind of how that happened. I also, I work with, I. That was my first Vacation working with Karen at MyPath unwinding. So she helped guide us a little bit with that as well.
The other thing was we knew we wanted to do a Mediterranean cruise.
My partner is not a Disney person, so the horror.
[00:08:26] Speaker C: Craig, my goodness, how can you be with somebody who's not a Disney person?
[00:08:31] Speaker A: So most of my Disney cruises actually have been with friends and family.
So we wanted to try a non Disney cruise. And then once we started looking, like I said, the all inclusive part of it really start becoming attractive.
[00:08:46] Speaker C: Yeah. Yeah. Well, and this, the smaller ships in general, I would say, lean towards the luxury market. Right. There aren't a lot of small ship companies that are. Well, they really, I don't know of any that are really budget friendly. I mean, and then they do tend to, to sort of to. To sway to the luxury market as well. Like not just in price, but also in what's included. Right. Some. A lot of them include your excursions, include your drinks, or at least, you know, beer and wine, things like that. So that's definitely, that's definitely when you start looking, I think at small ships, I think in general, people will. Will find that now. So you had the Med was where you wanted to go. So it was really choosing what, what line. Tell us about Seabourn as far as like, what were the. The clientele, like, what were the other passengers? Like, what age ranges that you saw? Because I don't even know. Is Seabourn adult only or is it.
No. Okay, so it's not like Viking, which is adult only, but what, what was sort of the age range of the passengers and where did it sort of tend to be?
[00:10:00] Speaker A: Well, I will add one other thing. The other reason that we ended up on Seabourn was we wanted to do a Thanksgiving cruise.
And so there were only certain ones that worked with our dates that we had in mind. So that's kind of really what pushed us in the direction of Seabourn. So, but as far as demographics, I mean, definitely, I think the smaller ship cruises lean towards an older crowd, but that might also just be because of price point. But, but I think overall there was actually a really good mixture of people on the ship. I mean, probably the majority, I would say 50%, were definitely people over 60, but there were still lots of couples in their 30s and 40s and 50s. There were some families on there.
There were probably not, not a lot. I think maybe like three families that we saw every day and one. One had a couple kids that were probably in like grade school. There was another family that had maybe kids in their 20s. I think they were doing like a multi generation type cruise with their grandparents and such. And then there was another group that had teenagers.
And so it was a good mix. There was definitely, you know, people for all ages.
[00:11:19] Speaker C: Yeah. Now we mentioned this is smaller ship. What are we talking about as far as smaller ship? Like, are we talking couple hundred people? Are we talking 500 people? Are we talking a thousand people? Because as you mentioned, you've done Celebrity and that was on the, the Celebrity cruise you did in Alaska was on the smaller end of large ship cruising, which is about 2,000 passengers. We know the Wonder and the Magic are about 2,400 passengers. So there are some large ship cruises that are still on that smaller end. But how small are we talking here?
[00:11:47] Speaker A: Yeah, so the, the ship that we were on was called the Sojourn, the Celebrity, the seaborne Sojourn.
And it held 450 and so 450 people and about 300 staff.
So that's the other thing about these smaller ships is that the staff to passenger ratio is very high. So, you know, close to being equal.
[00:12:14] Speaker C: Yeah, that's amazing.
[00:12:17] Speaker A: And as far as size, the ship itself is about probably a third of the size of the Magic. So it's pretty small.
[00:12:26] Speaker C: But that's pretty big for that many passengers though. I mean, if you think about it, right, it's only like, it's like a fifth of the passengers on the Wonder of the Magic, but a third of the size. That's actually, I mean, that's kind of nice. That's, you know, luxurious, I'd say.
[00:12:43] Speaker A: Yeah, you definitely could go places on the ship and not see people, which was pretty strange because, you know, I've been, I don't think I've ever been on a cruise where you walk down a corridor or you walk onto a deck or a hot tub area and see no one.
[00:12:59] Speaker C: Yeah, that would be very, very odd. Well, let's go back to the planning side of things. Obviously this is a med cruise, so probably, you know, port heavy, excursion heavy. Tell us, like on the excursion side of things, what did planning look like? Like, is there, you know, an app that you're booking ahead of time? Are excursions included and sort of like what kind of variety? Or how is it similar to Disney where you've got a variety of choices? You can book them through the, you know, through the cruise line or book them outside the cruise line, you know, sort of. How does that work? And compare it to Disney, I guess.
[00:13:36] Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, it's fairly similar There, there is an app, but the app isn't functional until you get on the ship. So most of the cruising or most of the planning for the cruise is done on the website.
And we did fly in a couple days early to Barcelona and kind of planned our own pre cruise for a couple days. They have hotels that they'll arrange that for you, but we did that on our own.
As far as the excursions, there were several excursions for every port, with the exception of one port, which was just a really tiny port. So there wasn't a whole lot to do there.
But yeah, you could plan those as far ahead as you wanted. I mean, as soon as you. You didn't have to be like fully paid or anything like that, you could start booking your excursions as soon as you put your down payment on the cruise.
[00:14:30] Speaker B: Craig Sarf, you said this. Did they include airfare in your cruise price?
[00:14:34] Speaker A: There is a package that includes airfare, which is. A lot of the small ships do that, but we did not do that because we didn't feel the value was there. And we did use their service to book the airfare. So they have discounts for the airfare, but we didn't include it in the price of the cruise.
[00:14:57] Speaker C: Yeah. Now, on the excursion side of things, were those included or were they add ons depending upon what you picked?
[00:15:05] Speaker A: So that's the probably the only thing that Seabourn doesn't include. So the excursions are something you pay for and, you know, well, I'm sure we'll talk about it, but everything else is included, but not the excursions. And I think the reason for that probably is because these smaller ships are usually on a. An itinerary that's probably like 300 days almost, in some cases a lot of times at least 100 or so days. And you're just getting on for a portion of that cruise's itinerary.
[00:15:40] Speaker C: Oh, interesting. So you have people who are like on for months at a time and they're just sort of continuing on the cruise. And then you have some, like, at every port you have people like boarding and disembarking and stuff. Wow.
[00:15:54] Speaker A: So when booked this cruise, it could either be a 7, a 14 or a 21 day, so depending on how and where you wanted to go.
And it had just come from a 14 day before we got on, which was part of west coast of Africa and the Canary Islands.
[00:16:13] Speaker C: Oh, cool. Yeah. The other part of that is that their itineraries are completely different from week to week. You're not like, it's not like on Disney where like if you stayed on the ship back to back, unless you're just doing like the summer Europe season and even there you'd have some repetition. But on this kind of cruise on Seabourn, I mean every, every week essentially is a different itinerary. Most likely you might have a couple ports that you go to more than once, but generally speaking it's going to be pretty, pretty varied. That's cool.
[00:16:43] Speaker A: Yeah. For instance, ours did begin and end in Barcelona, but both the week before and the week after were going to be different out of Barcelona. So.
[00:16:53] Speaker C: Yeah, very cool. Well, let's, let's talk about continuing with the planning side of things.
Are there other things that you needed to plan in advance like booking, I don't know, shows or other activities? I mean like I said, it is going to, I know it's going to be a port heavy type of cruise, of course when you're in anywhere else where in Europe.
But were there other things you needed to book in advance or really just the excursions?
[00:17:19] Speaker A: Just the excursions. And I don't even know if they necessarily needed to be booked in advance. I mean it's a pretty like, you know, since it's a small ship and the, the cruise, I can't think of any excursions that I saw on the website that said sold out by the time we got there.
So. And again I, like I said since it's a multi, much larger itinerary ship, a lot of people, if they're on there that long, they don't get off at every port. So if you got off at every single core on a hundred day cruise, I would imagine you'd be pretty exhausted. I mean I listen to your, you know your podcast with the, the around the world celebrity. It was no celebrity. It was a Royal Caribbean. And I just don't know how they did that.
[00:18:04] Speaker C: Yeah, Jenny and Leslie were like machines the way they went from port to, I mean they did some, you know, stuff where they would skip but they really were pretty intense I would say for any kind of, that kind of a long cruise. Yeah, it would be pretty intense if you keep getting off. Yeah, definitely an in a different kind of vibe than the we must get off and do an excursion that you would have in a med cruise on Disney.
I'm curious about. Okay, so you said everything pretty much is included except for the excursions. So that means like alcohol is included, all dining included. But I wonder, I'm curious, are there like what the amenities of the ship are? Right. Like Is there a spa and pool? And I mean, are there water slides? I'm guessing not water slides, but I don't know. I mean, like, what's, what does the ship kind of look like if we think about, you know, what's on the top deck, what are on, you know, the guest areas?
[00:18:58] Speaker A: Yeah, it's a pretty typical layout for a cruise ship, just shrunk down.
So yeah, like you said, everything pretty much was included.
The restaurants, there was one specialty restaurant on there which was included. There's gelato station that's included. And alcohol is all alcohol. Not just during like a Sibin sale or anything like that, but anytime.
And the, and that's any alcohol. So you know, mixed drinks, wine, whatever you would like. Internet was included. Room service, your gratuities are included.
So yeah, like you said, every, pretty much everything except for these versions was included. As far as the layout, you know, very similar. The. The top deck is a, is a pool deck.
A pretty good sized pool, actually.
I think it's strange. It seems like no matter what cruise ship I get on, no matter how big it is, the pool always looks the same size.
[00:20:00] Speaker C: I feel like that's totally true. Like the small ships, the big ships, they're. The pool's the same size.
[00:20:05] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, but it looks a lot bigger on a smaller ship.
And so, yeah, you have a pool deck area with kind of an elevated deck above it.
And, and then there's a walking track up there, just like a lot of the ships have. There's some sports, you know, equipment and things up there, like a little outdoor basketball area.
There is the, in the pool deck area, there's a kind of a, I guess a quick service type.
But it, it was. Functions as a quick service that you can go up and order things, but then you go and sit down and they bring it to you. So it's a little different than around and then, and then inside, you know, there's an atrium, just like there is on most cruise ships, but of course much smaller. The first few decks are all passenger decks.
And then there's a main dining room, just one main dining room. And then there's another area on the, on the back of the ship like a buffet, which most, most cruise ships always tend to have. The buffet in the back with a lot of windows that you can look out. And actually their buffet also had a restaurant in it. So it converted to a restaurant at nighttime.
So buffet for breakfast and lunch and then a restaurant at night.
[00:21:26] Speaker C: That's what Disney used to do. Like. Yeah, because Cabanas used to be open for dinner, but it wasn't buffet. It was. And it would have the same food as you had in main dining. So you could go if you wanted to sort of just a little bit more. And they would use it a lot of the time, I think, for like training new servers as well. And so you'd have like a little bit more casual atmosphere than like the sit down dinner in the. Dining in one of the rotational dining rooms, but the same food, but that has not come back since pandemic. Pre pandemic time. So. Super interesting.
[00:21:56] Speaker A: Yeah, I think I remember that as well. But this one's a little different in that the, the dinner, the buffet that turns into a restaurant has its own menu.
And then there's also an outdoor restaurant that is part of where the quick service was during the day and becomes an outdoor restaurant at night. And all three of those have different menus. So you have choices about where to go.
[00:22:21] Speaker C: Yeah, that. So how does dining work then? Like, do you have a set dinner time that you like, that you get dinner seating, like a early and late seating or anything like that? Is it sort of free for all? And how. How do you sort of. Do you have to do any planning about where you want to eat or do you just show up? And. And also, I guess the other question is like, do you have an assigned dining staff team? Right. If you go to main dining for ex. So, yeah, curious about. I would know, like I said, know nothing about Seabourn. So I'm very curious how. How they do dining.
[00:22:51] Speaker A: So there is just one dining time. Um, it's about an hour and a half, I believe it was. And you just can kind of show up anytime during that. And there's no reservations or anything like that, except for the one specialty restaurant. So the three restaurants, you just kind of look at the menus in the morning when the menus come out, and you just decide which one appeals to you the most.
All three restaurants have a kind of a selection of fixed things that the chef has prepared for those restaurants. But then all three restaurants have that kind of basic menu that most cruise ships will have where you can if you don't find anything you like, there's usually a salad option and a fish option, a chicken or a steak, you know, if you want to keep it really simple.
The specialty restaurant does require a reservation, and everyone technically gets one meal at there. But if everyone has eaten there that wants to eat there, you can ask to go back multiple times if you want. And that menu that Menu stays the same all week, but there's multiple things on that menu. So, you know, if you really want. Couldn't decide between two things. I don't think it would have been a problem to go back. Our ship was not at capacity, so there was definitely time to go back a second time, but he did not do that.
[00:24:11] Speaker C: But I'm imagining that the specialty restaurant, the food is a little bit more elevated than like in main dining. Is that a fair assessment?
[00:24:19] Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, the food was pretty elevated in general.
[00:24:22] Speaker C: I was going to ask. I have a feeling.
[00:24:24] Speaker A: And you know, my partner Richard would have even say maybe a little too elevated for his taste sometimes. But.
But the specialty restaurant definitely took it up another notch. And, you know, similar to Palo on the Disney ships here, definitely getting an experience.
It actually, up until the year before we cruised, it used. The specialty restaurant, used to be a Thomas Keller steakhouse, and. But they ended their partnership with him the year before we cruised. And it just became a more of a kind of a French cuisine type restaurant.
[00:25:03] Speaker D: Yeah.
[00:25:03] Speaker B: So for. For those listening who may not know, Thomas Keller is the chef behind restaurants such as Per Se in New York and the French Laundry in the San Francisco Bay area, among others. Or Bouchon Bouchon Bakery in Las Vegas, folks might be familiar with. So, yeah, fat. Really high end chef.
[00:25:19] Speaker C: Yeah, absolutely. Super good food.
I'm also curious about, like, dining team. Did you have, like, your. Did your servers in main? I'm assuming in other places. Other places they wouldn't stay the same, but did you have the same serving team? Like, did you get seated in the same place every time you went to main dining?
[00:25:37] Speaker A: No. You. You could pretty much. I mean, I think most of us are creatures of habit. We tend to go back and sit at the same table every night.
[00:25:44] Speaker C: Absolutely. So true.
[00:25:46] Speaker A: But.
But you know that since it's a small ship, you. You meet people and then you're like, oh, I'll have dinner with you guys the next night, or maybe this tonight, we'll eat by ourselves. And so you kind of just end up somewhere, honestly. And the other thing is the. There's. The staff is. I mean, the ship is so small again that you pretty much get to know the staff.
So it doesn't really matter where you're sitting. Like, people wave at you and come over and say hi to you, and there's not a whole lot of wait staff for a ship that size. So almost no matter where you sit, you're going to see who waited on you the night before that's cool.
[00:26:24] Speaker C: Yeah, I love that because you get that. I mean, we had that on our river cruise, of course, even smaller. And I know you. I think you have sailed on a river cruise and I know you have one booked with Amma.
[00:26:35] Speaker A: We just did the Amma two weeks ago.
[00:26:37] Speaker C: Oh, you just fit. Oh, you just did. Okay. There you go. I was looking at the show notes, so I know, like, you know, in that scenario is like so small. And so you do see the same people over and over again. And so it's just a completely different experience than on like a Disney cruise line or other or Royal or whatnot, where you're in this huge dining room. And so, yeah, it's a very, very different experience.
I'm curious about, like, onboard activities. Like, what do they have to keep the guests entertained? Let's first talk, like, daytime type activities. Like, do they do trivias and like, you know, game shows and things like that? I know this is less of a family focused cruise, although, as you mentioned, there were some families. And this tends to skew towards. It's not adult only, but it tends to skew towards adults. I'm curious if they have activities, you know, that they advertise going on in various spaces around the ship during the day.
[00:27:29] Speaker A: Right.
So I definitely think it's much less focused on activities than other cruises we've been on, for sure.
But there were things to do for sure that one of the main gathering areas on the ship is called Seabourn Square, which is just kind of a large lounge area that has large windows that you can see out the front of the ship while you're cruising. And that's also also where all of the, like the, the concierge people are there, the excursion planning people are there.
You know, any kind of help that you need with anything, those desks are all on that area.
Future cruise planning, so on is there. And so in that area, that whole lounge area, in addition to being the kind of a viewing for while you're cruising, that's also where the coffee shop was. And there's like a. The gelato and the bakery is right there.
And then the whole thing around the edges of it, where there aren't windows is the library.
So.
And there's. So a lot of people are up there reading during the day. I mean, as you mentioned, it's pretty Mediterranean. Cruises are pretty excursion heavy, so there's not a lot of people around during the day. But if you wanted to hang out on the ship, certainly that's kind of the, the reading area off that area. There's also. There's a game room that has a bunch of card tables set up in it, so people will be playing cards in there. There was a whole wall of board games that you could take in the Seabourn Square area. Also there were a lot of tables with partially done jigsaw puzzles. So people would just kind of sit down and, you know, put some puzzle pieces together for a half an hour or whatever.
[00:29:15] Speaker C: That's my jam. I would. I would be sitting. I would be sitting there doing the jigsaw puzzle.
[00:29:20] Speaker A: Yeah. So there were several tables of those, and most of them were finished by the time we were done with the cruise. So between the. The full efforts of everyone on the ship, they do have trivia every day.
Usually there's a cocktail hour before the dinner, and it's not so much that that's when you can get your alcohol, because of course, the drinks are anytime, but it's more of a gathering.
And. And so they'll have afternoon trivia, I believe. It was usually right before that. We're actually not big trivia people, so we didn't really ever do that. But. And it actually, it tend to be during my nap time, honestly.
[00:29:59] Speaker C: So, yeah, you're out like all day and then you're just getting back, have a little rest and then come to cocktail hour and go to dinner. Right. I mean, that's. Yeah. I'm curious about evening activities again. I wouldn't be shocked if you went to bed kind of early, considering you have, like, long port days and, you know, quite, you know, active excursions. But what kinds of things were available in the evening? Did they have musical performances? Did they have any shows? Like, is there even a theater on board the ship? Or if they do performances, is it in that sort of lounge space that you've been talking about?
[00:30:34] Speaker A: No, there is a separate theater. And actually that's something that I was really surprised by. The entertainment was fantastic.
So they have a theater.
It's a little bit different. It's not set up in like a stadium style seating, like a lot of the cruise ships. It's actually just slightly increased in.
In height as it goes back. And then there's just a bunch of tables with really nice, big comfy chairs. So, yeah, it was like cabaret style.
[00:31:03] Speaker C: But with comfy chairs. I love that. Yeah, yeah.
[00:31:07] Speaker A: And. And so every night they had something going on in there. So. So they have their own musical troupe, so to speak, called the Seabourne Singers. And they were fantastic. It was three guys and three girls and A live band.
And I think one night they did just kind of a show tune medley thing and then another night they had more of a themed show. And both shows were great. They were all incredibly talented. They also had a guest pianist on the show or on this ship. And that was something. It was kind of interesting. You know, sometimes when I'm on a cruise, I'll read what the entertainment is at night and I'll be like, I'm not really, that's not really my thing. And I just, I don't go. And I kind of almost did that with.
[00:31:50] Speaker C: You mean you don't do the mentalist or the ventriloquist.
[00:31:55] Speaker A: And so when I saw that there was a guest pianist, I was like, I'm not sure if that's my thing. But I. But I'll tell you, I kind of learned my lesson that if you think you might or maybe you don't know enough about something, you should go to the show because you never know what to expect. And this, this guy was so incredible. I mean it was just, he was, he was kind of a comedian and you know, a piano player, both. And so it was just like a really entertaining show.
And he performed two nights. And then the cruise director was also a former member of the Seabourn Singers. So he did his own solo show one night as well, which was great.
[00:32:32] Speaker C: Oh, that's so cool. I love that. I mean I love, obviously I love performers. I talk about it all the time on the show. I love like I will go see a ventriloquist or a mentalist too. It's not that I don't like those kinds of things. It's just those are the things that I'm more likely to skip than like a singing, you know, performance or something like that or Broadway style show.
[00:32:55] Speaker D: Are you listening to our show because you want to make the most out of your next vacation. Great news. The fabulous team over at MyPath Unwinding Travel can help guide you so you don't miss a thing.
[00:33:03] Speaker C: Thing.
[00:33:03] Speaker D: Their team of professional travel advisors are caring, knowledgeable and experienced. It's why we use them to book our own travel. Mypath Unwinding Travel is an authorized Disney vacation planner, which means they are recognized by Disney for their expertise and service. They have sailed on all the Disney ships, including in concierge, visited the theme parks, adventured with Disney, Relaxed at Aulani, and so much more. Whether it's a Disney cruise, a theme park vacation or adventures by Disney, or if you are looking to expand beyond the mouse, my favorite unwinding travel will elevate your next vacation planning experience. Even if you have already booked, reach out for a complimentary consultation to make your vacation even more magical. Ready to talk to the experts? Head over to mypathunwinding.com DCLDUO or email DCLDUO mypathunwinding.com so they know we sent you their way. Thanks my path unwinding for sponsoring today's show. Now back to the episode.
[00:33:53] Speaker B: How robust was the nightlife on board?
[00:33:56] Speaker A: So yeah, they had a pretty decent nightlife. So they have one bar, lounge area on the ship and there's a band that they have that's kind of the, the band for the cruise and it was.
They would be by the pool during the day. So there was always live music by the pool, which I really liked. And then that same band would come into the lounge after the show. So, so after whatever show was there that night, that band would be then be in the bar area and they would play, you know, just your typical kind of lounge pen music, you know, some 70s and 80s and 90s covers and everybody found something that they could dance to. There was a little dance floor there. The bar was very nice. They would have. That actually was. That's actually one of the food venues I forgot to mention. So that bar also had sushi chefs and they would make fresh sushi every night both before and after dinner.
[00:34:57] Speaker C: Ah, that sounds so good. Late night sushi or, or happy hour sushi. That sounds amazing.
[00:35:03] Speaker A: Yeah, so. And you know, kind of similar to like what you've mentioned with Amma before is that you know, a lot of people play multi roles on the ship. So you know the, the staff that was in the restaurant is now upstairs working the bar. It's cocktails hour and everything. So.
But yeah, I mean there was, you know a lot of people would hang out at the pool in the hot tubs at night and then a fair amount of people would come into the bar every night.
But you know, there certainly was just that one venue and, and with it being excursion heavy, people did tend to retire early. But yeah, they also had a casino, a very small casino right next to that bar. I mean I think it was two blackjack tables and maybe 10 slot machines and that was it. And that actually was pretty hopping as well. So.
[00:35:55] Speaker D: Nice.
[00:35:56] Speaker B: What about. I think we forgot to ask you about your stateroom on board. What was your like what were the options for staterooms? You know is they do they have inside cabins? Was everything a balcony and then like what was your stateroom like on Board.
[00:36:11] Speaker A: So there are just a few ocean views rooms on I believe the very first floor of the ship.
And then after I, I mean I would think, I think there was just maybe a dozen or so of those. But after that, all the rooms on the ship are a veranda rooms.
They consider all of their rooms, even the few that were ocean view suites. So every room is called a suite.
And then we had a veranda room above the veranda room. I believe there was a class called maybe like a penthouse that was a little bit bigger. And then I think there were a few kind of like owner's suites on there as well. The rooms were very good size. I believe ours was about 300 square feet and had about a 60 or 70 square foot balcony. So very good size. It was, it had a king size bed and then there was a little couch area. There was a permanent table in the room.
And that's for some of the benefits of you could, you could always eat in your room and they would.
So we got breakfast a few times in our room and it was quite an ordeal. It kind of was like we were like, wow, this is a different class of ship because they come in and they set a linen tablecloth on your table and they bring in everything you could possibly think of that you might need from the dining room and it's all right there and they set it up for you and they pour your coffee, coffee. And the waiter stands there and you know he'll stand there and wait for you until you say you don't need him anymore.
[00:37:49] Speaker C: What?
[00:37:49] Speaker A: That's crazy.
[00:37:51] Speaker C: They don't just like, like on Disney, they might set a tablecloth down if you're in, if you're in like a. Particularly if you're in a suite. But like they just set everything down and then they leave. And guess what? If they didn't bring like your ketchup or your butter, like good luck, you're not getting any like unless you run to cabana as yourself.
[00:38:10] Speaker A: Wow. Yeah, it was really nice. Especially on the excursion days. We usually ordered the breakfast in. Especially after we had it that first time. We were like, we're going to enjoy this.
And. And they'll also set it up there. You have a table on your balcony and they'll set up lunch or dinner on the table on the balcony. And one of Seaborn's signature things, if you go to their website, is caviar anywhere, anytime.
So you can order it if you're at the poolside, if you're by a hot tub, if you're at your dinner or if you're in your room, you can order caviar service and they bring it right to your room. The whole service, everything you could want on it.
[00:38:54] Speaker C: And like all the fixins, like all the fixings and maybe some champagne too.
Oh my God, Craig, you had me at caviar anytime you wanted.
[00:39:04] Speaker A: And you could even call for that at like 2 o' clock in the morning. They literally say anywhere, anytime on the ship. So.
And we were actually not very experienced with caviar at all. It's like something that was bougie for us, but. But definitely after we did it, we're like, okay, we could definitely choose this.
[00:39:23] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:39:24] Speaker A: And.
And then aside from that, the dining space in the back in the room, there was also a very large bathroom, all marble, very beautiful.
But the bathroom was one area that we had a little bit of a. That was probably our only negative on the cruise. And that was. We felt like the bathroom was a little dated in its layout.
So it was very large, which was nice, but it had a very large tub in the bathroom and a very tiny shower.
[00:39:59] Speaker C: Right. A very large tub is generally worthless. Like how many people actually soak in a tub these days? Unless you have a, if you have a child that you need to bathe. But it again, we're not, there's not like little kids on this cruise for the most part. Right. So like you do not need a large soaking tub. You need a person sized shower.
[00:40:17] Speaker A: Yeah, right, exactly. Yeah, you definitely need. I mean it was a very small shower and I just felt like that that layout needs updated for what most people want on today's cruises.
And. But I'll tell you, this is an example of the service on this ship. This was pretty incredible. So we, we actually didn't really complain, but we mentioned something about the layout of the bathroom to the head house of housekeeping.
And literally the next day they had engineered a shower into the bathtubs.
And I don't mean that, I don't mean that. They just like put one of those like portable shower stopper things that make it a handheld on it. They had actually come in and changed the plumbing of the bathtub and created a shower wand with a cord in it for the next, for the rest of our cruise.
And so that's the kind of service that is just like, it blows you away, you know, like when you come in and the actual hardware in the bathroom has been changed for you, you're just like, I can't believe that.
[00:41:25] Speaker C: Yeah. Is the service like that across the ship. Like, is it, is it just when you have like a customer service complaint or is it like din bar staff?
You know, the, the folks that you book excursions through. Like, is this, is the service level like that across the board?
[00:41:43] Speaker A: Yeah. I mean, the service is really spectacular when you so, you know, getting, you know, embarking on a small ship like that, you know, you don't have to go through this huge crowd of people or anything like that. You, it's kind of like a river cruise. You just kind of walk on.
And, and so when you walk on the, the staff is waiting for you right when you get on the ship and the cruise director is there and he shakes your hand and introduces himself. And then they turn you over to a staff member who walked, who hands you two glasses of champagne and they walk you to your room.
And when you get to the room, they, that person stayed in there and walked around and explained everything in the room to you, told you how to operate everything, where the plugs and sockets were, how to operate the lights, how to turn on the, you know, this, the TV and everything.
And then a few minutes later, someone, you're the people who are going to be taking care of your room, they come in and there's two of them for each room and they come in with a tray of different soaps and they let you smell the soaps and you decide which soaps you want on your, in your bathroom for the rest of the cruise. So, yeah, I mean, it's, it's. The service is definitely impeccable.
[00:43:00] Speaker C: Yeah. Now who, when you are like making a request for something, is there like, is it like butler service? Are there like concierge type hosts? Like, how does that work? And then are you doing things through the app or are you going and talking to a person, like, I'm just curious, like, mechanically how things work when you're on the ship.
[00:43:21] Speaker A: The app was mostly for just like the, the daily activities.
[00:43:26] Speaker C: So like a schedule. Yeah.
[00:43:28] Speaker A: It had electronic tickets for your excursions on it and things that, and, but as far as asking for anything, it was difficult to walk more than a few steps without seeing a staff member. And you just asked whoever you came in contact with and, and it was done immediately. If you had any, I guess, complaints or issues with your crews, then you would go up to that area where the Seaborn square was and that's where the staff was to handle onboard issues.
We had one issue with, with an excursion that we needed to change, and so you would have done that up there. But I mean, Certainly there was a telephone in your room that I assume you could pick up and somebody would do something for you, somebody to answer. Right. But I never really had to do that because you could just stick your head out into the hallway and someone was usually there.
[00:44:24] Speaker C: That's amazing. That's amazing. I'm, I'm curious that you have now sailed on, you know, large ship cruising, small ship cruising, river cruising. Like what would you say is sort of the, the main differences between the three? Because obviously like, you know, the number of people is different. But like, what's. What, like, what do you take away from like who is like this size ship, cruise ship for versus large ship versus like river cruising?
[00:44:56] Speaker A: Well, I mean, you know, I have to say it doesn't matter what cruise I've been on, whether it's been 6,000 people or the smallest, the staff are always amazing as far as I'm concerned. I mean I'm just always amazed at how hard these, how hard these people work. But so I've never really had an issue with that as far as who this is for. I, I think it's just if you want the, if you want the planning kind of just taken away from you, you know, and the, the. It's definitely, I mean there's no roller coasters, there's no climbing walls, there's nothing like that. So it's more of a, a excursion based cruise, if that's what you're after, and a relaxation cruise. Like there's not, you know, you, if you want to be like activity heavy, it's definitely not the cruise for you.
[00:45:47] Speaker C: Feel that makes sense. Is there a spa on board as well? I forgot to ask. And a gym on board.
I feel like that's a very typical thing. But obviously river cruises have like a single room. Not really like a, a real gym or a real spa. But I'm curious on this kind of.
[00:46:04] Speaker A: Cruise, yeah, they had a very nice spa, pretty good size, a few whirlpool. I think they had a whirlpool in there and the, like the, a steam sauna and a dry sauna and I think they may have had some of the kind of the rainforest type shower things in there. I did get a massage in there one day which was incredible.
But all massages on vacation are great.
So.
But, and then they also had a gym, a pretty good sized gym.
The gym was set up similar to most gyms on cruise ships where it's, you know, all the, the treadmills facing out towards the water and, and some equipment. They also had this kind of, of specialty, kind of, I guess gym equipment that I wasn't familiar with. I kind of, I think it was more of like a Pilates type equipment, but that's not something I'd ever done and I'm not much of a gym person on a cruise anyway, so.
They had.
[00:47:06] Speaker C: Relaxing Craig.
[00:47:07] Speaker A: Yeah, they had, they had exercise classes and you know, yoga and everything like that.
[00:47:14] Speaker C: So awesome. I mean, honestly, this, this cruise sounds incredible. I mean we haven't even talked about ports at all because obviously we wanted to focus the show on, you know, comparing the experience on a smaller ship versus. Versus a larger ship. But you of course went to one of the most amazing parts of the world. Med, I gotta ask what your favorite port of call was on this cruise. Cause I feel like we, I mean we're not gonna go through all the ports. Cause we're, we're all, we're almost at 50 minutes on the show and we haven't talked at port, so we're not going to do that. Except I want to hear what your favorite port was.
[00:47:50] Speaker A: Well, we, like I said we did two days in Barcelona before, so that was really incredible.
But I think my favorite port was actually Corsica.
So we went to the island of Corsica and that was just. I mean, I didn't know really what to expect and it was just incredible. It was like, like a fantasy. It was so beautiful. I've never been on an island like that. And it looked like a movie set sometimes. Like it just. Some of the villages looked almost too movie like to be real, I guess, so to speak. And it's just a beautiful island with beautiful water all around it and lots of little villages with little houses and, and these, everyone had these beautiful gardens on the back of their houses and it just was really spectacular. And we also, in addition to going and doing touring some of the villages, one of our, our excursion there went to a national park.
And I'll probably butcher this name, but it's Lake Kalanak.
And it's basically like if you could imagine Zion, if you've been to Zion or Bryce Canyon, it's these like red rock canyons on the side of the ocean.
[00:49:08] Speaker C: Oh my goodness. I've seen pictures. I've never done this kind of scenery, but I've seen pictures and it's amazing.
[00:49:15] Speaker A: And that was just. It was breathtaking in more than one way. It was. First of all it was beautiful. And secondly, the road to get there was this tiny little winding road and our giant bus was on it. And there were several times that I had to close my eyes because the drop off from the road was just so stuck. Steep off to the end of the ocean, but especially when the bus had to turn around.
[00:49:37] Speaker B: Well, Craig, before I subject you to Sam's rapid fire, which I'm frankly fascinated to know what she's going to ask you in rapid fire, since this isn't really a Disney cruise discussion, but anything we missed that you want to be sure to share about your experience on Seabourn?
[00:49:55] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:49:55] Speaker A: I think one thing is that a lot of people are very. I think at least when we were reading on Facebook's before Facebook posts, before we went, a lot of people were really concerned about dress code on these small ship cruises. Oh, that's a great.
[00:50:10] Speaker C: I was thinking about asking you that question, then I forgot all about it. Yeah.
[00:50:14] Speaker A: And so. And a lot of the advertising does on these websites show people very dressed up, and. But honestly, it's very relaxed. We never felt underdressed.
You could. It was very casual during the day. Of course, at night, they do have a little bit of a dress code for the main dining room, which is just no shorts, and they want a collared shirt. But honestly, that could be a polo. It didn't have to be like a dress shirt or anything like that.
There certainly were people who dressed up. I mean, there were nights when we saw people in tuxedos and ball gowns and stuff, but. But no one ever looked at you differently because you were not dressed up like that. I mean, it was very relaxed vibe on the ship, and I don't think you should let that keep you from. From wanting to do one of these cruises.
[00:51:04] Speaker C: That's awesome. Yeah.
All right, are we ready, Brian?
[00:51:09] Speaker B: I mean, if you're ready, you stretched, limbered up, all that good stuff.
[00:51:13] Speaker C: We're gonna do verses, so.
[00:51:15] Speaker D: Yes.
[00:51:16] Speaker B: Here we go. All right. Well, it has reached that point in the show where I need to subject you to some arbitrary questions, some arbitrary rules, and a dash of judgment are the round Sam calls rapid fire. So, Sam, take it away.
[00:51:28] Speaker C: Thank you. Okay. Because this is a show talking about Seabourn cruises. We're going to do a Disney versus Seabourn. So I'm going to ask you a question, and either Disney's going to win, Seabourn's going to win, or I guess they could tie conceivably.
So we're going to start with the booking process. Now, I know you used Karen at MyPath Unwinding Travel, so I'm imagining this was relatively easy on either Disney or Seabourn. But who's doing it better? Who's. Who is the easiest to book through?
[00:52:01] Speaker A: Well, I definitely think probably Seabourn is going to win there because there's just less stress involved booking.
[00:52:09] Speaker C: Don't have to worry about certain timing and all that.
[00:52:11] Speaker A: Right, right. I mean, everybody who's done Disney cruise knows about hopping on at midnight for this or that. And it's a little bit competitive for things if you want to do certain things. And I know with Disney, I've been on, you know, cruises or excursions, have sold out before. I wanted to do them before. So I would say just from that standpoint, it was definitely easier on Seabourn.
[00:52:36] Speaker C: All right, okay, let's do onboard activities. Who's doing it better?
And like, exclude evening shows from the repertoire, because I'm gonna. That shows gets its own category. So. Yeah. Who's doing activities better? Disney or Seabourne Born?
[00:52:55] Speaker A: I think probably for most people it would definitely be Disney. And there's definitely a lot more activities, especially if you have a family. But even if you don't, there's, you know, there's activities like, you know, the beverage classes and stuff on Disney that you can go to that you don't have on Seabourn. But for me, I think it really doesn't. Not that that much of a difference because I'm not someone who does a lot of those activities. I like to read a book on the. On my cruise and I like to relax and. And, you know, coffee and that kind of thing is you. I have a pretty stressful job, so this is my downtime, so that makes sense.
[00:53:34] Speaker C: All right, Shows. We know Disney has Broadway style shows on a beautiful stage, but it sounds like Seaborn's doing pretty good with their Seabourn Singers.
Who's doing shows better?
[00:53:47] Speaker A: Well, I mean, definitely Disney on that. So, I mean, not. Not to say anything to the talent of people on either ship, of course, but it's just a different class, of course. I mean, the Broadway shows on Disney are, you know, can take your breath away. So it's. They're very different type of environment, for sure.
[00:54:09] Speaker C: Yeah. All right.
Probably the most important thing about a cruise of all is food.
Who's doing food better, Disney or Seabourne? I know where this answer is going, and I don't think it's going with Disney.
[00:54:24] Speaker A: Well, you know, I do love food on Disney for sure, but I definitely, probably say that Seabourn was better.
The only thing I would say that Disney has a disadvantage of on this side, which makes me lean towards Seabourn. Is the fact that the rotational dining. You don't really have a choice about where to eat, so you kind of have to go to that dining room that night and. And get something off the menu in that dining room. Whereas you, with Seabourn, you did have a choice between three restaurants every night, and you didn't have to make a reservation at those. At those three, at least. And you could just pick whatever you wanted. As far as quality, though, I think they were both correct. Great. I mean.
[00:55:12] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:55:12] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:55:13] Speaker C: That's awesome. You said. And certainly more elevated on Seabourn, although your partner at times thought a little too elevated, so that's an interesting takeaway as well.
[00:55:21] Speaker A: Yeah. I mean, it was kind of, you know, sometimes it was kind of like eating Palo dinner every night. You know, lots of form. Formality.
[00:55:29] Speaker C: Formal and too rich and all.
[00:55:30] Speaker A: Yeah. So sometimes you just want a burger.
[00:55:35] Speaker C: Yeah. All right. Bar spaces.
[00:55:39] Speaker A: Definitely Disney for that. Yeah, I.
I haven't been on the Dream and the Fantasy for a while, so. And I know that they have the larger adult areas on there, and. But from when I did go on those, that was definitely. It was nice having a choice of multiple spaces to go to.
[00:55:58] Speaker C: Yeah. Yeah.
I. You know, I'm guessing Seabourn doesn't have any kids clubs, but do they have any sort of. Of, like, kids room or anything like that for kids activities?
[00:56:09] Speaker A: Not that I was aware of, no.
[00:56:11] Speaker C: Yeah. So obviously, Disney wins on kids clubs.
You know, I always. I also have characters on my list, but, you know, Disney wins on. On characters as well.
Service.
This is probably a tougher call because I think on a smaller ship in general, you just get more personal service. Of course, you've sailed on concierge on Disney, so that you. You get some personal service there. But I'm curious, like, even. Even if we're comparing concierge to Seabourn, does Seabourn still win there?
[00:56:41] Speaker A: Yeah, I definitely think concierge on Disney takes it to another level.
You know, you can pretty much get whatever you want on concierge within reason, whenever you ask for it, so. And they go out of their way to do that for you. You. I think the perspective is a little different because on Seabourn, pretty much everyone is kind of treating you as this, like, very important guest. And when on concierge, you kind of just really feel that when you're in the concierge lounge, of course, and. And you're not really.
It's not like you wear a sign around your neck on the Disney ship saying, I'm in Concierge, and they're going to treat Yodi differently anywhere else on the ship. So.
So I think, you know, concierge level is definitely very similar to Seabourn, but Seabourn, you just kind of expect it everywhere you go on the ship.
[00:57:35] Speaker C: Yeah, that's pretty awesome. All right, cleanliness. I'm always curious because, you know, we always see Disney ships at port. They're clean in the outside of the ship, they're clean in the inside of the ship constantly.
How did you feel about it on Seabourn? Was it, you know, as good, better, you know, or. Or not as good?
[00:57:54] Speaker A: It was probably the same.
The seaborne ship was, I believe the one we were on was about 15 years old, but you would not have known it. It's very similar to Disney in that aspect. Everything is. Is, you know, spotless. You know, there was not. You would. There's not like you could find a threadbare couch arm somewhere or anything like that. You know, that everything is immediately fixed or replaced or painted or, or. Or cleaned. The pool areas were all always incredibly clean. So, yeah, definitely love that.
[00:58:26] Speaker C: That's important to me. All right, cabins. This is our second, or actually third to last question, but cabins. Who has nicer cabins?
[00:58:35] Speaker A: Well, up until my Halloween on the high seas cruise last year, I would have said for sure Seabourns are. Are nicer, they're bigger, and you have a living space in every room in addition to the best space. But last year, I got to do my first one bedroom concierge and so on the magic. And it's really hard to beat that room. That room is unbelievable.
[00:58:59] Speaker C: Those are really great rooms. I love that. All right, very important question.
Overall, if you could. Tomorrow you're going on a cruise and you're picking between Seabourne and Disney, I'll even let you pick concierge on Disney because we got to even out the price point, right? They're both. Those are the luxury part of the market.
Which would you pick tomorrow? All things. All things otherwise equivalent, you know, same itinerary, that sort of a thing. Are you going on Seabourn? Are you going on Disney tomorrow?
[00:59:32] Speaker A: Well, I guess it depends on who I'm with.
[00:59:35] Speaker C: I like it. How about if you're going by yourself? If you just.
[00:59:38] Speaker A: You.
[00:59:38] Speaker C: Because I. I know your partner would choose Seabourn right over Disney because he's not a Disney person. But for. For you specifically.
[00:59:46] Speaker A: I would probably choose Disney. That's, you know, that's where I've.
My heart's been there a long time, and that's where most of my cruising experience is. And it just feels more like home when I'm on one of the Disney ships. So.
[01:00:01] Speaker C: Yeah. All right, well, the last question of Rapid Fire is the same question I ask everybody. Your bucket list cruise. If you could go anywhere in the world on a Disney ship, and it doesn't even have to be someplace that Disney Cruise Line currently sails, where would you go, Craig?
[01:00:16] Speaker A: Well, we kind of have one of our bucket lists planned for next year. So we're doing.
We've. We're working with. Karen had turned us on to a cruise line called Explora Journeys. So we're going to be doing an Explora cruise from Venice to Greece.
[01:00:39] Speaker C: Amazing.
[01:00:40] Speaker A: So that one we'll be doing next year.
But if I were. Again, if it was me by myself, then my bucket list is Antarctica.
[01:00:50] Speaker C: Oh, fantastic. Yeah, yeah. Well, and I know that Nat Geo is doing those, even though right now Adventures by Disney is not doing those, or they have done them in the past, but not currently doing Antarctica. But if that's not on your bucket list, what is? Right.
That's on our bucket list, too. Well, thank you for playing, Craig. Obviously, Disney wins. I wasn't even doing the count, but I could tell from the number of places you chose. But it sounds like you had an amazing cruise on Seabourn, and it sounds like Seabourn is probably a great choice if you're going to sail with your partner and if you want to sail on a smaller, you know, line and, you know, some of those smaller lines can go to smaller ports as well without having to tender and things like that. So there is. There are some advantages that we didn't cover on today's show, but that we've talked about in other shows of just being on a smaller ship in general.
Um, we'd love to have you come back, of course, to talk about your Explorer Cruise. That sounds pretty amazing. We haven't heard much about that line as well.
Brian, I didn't get. I didn't let you ask your question, but I know what's next. Craig already mentioned. Yeah, yeah. Do you have anything booked besides the Explorer cruise?
[01:02:04] Speaker A: Yeah, so I have a Disney cruise in January.
So a.
That we'll be going both to Lighthouse and to Castaway on the Dream out of Fort Lauderdale.
And then this September, we're doing our first Holland America cruise from Boston to Quebec. So we're going to do a Canada cruise.
[01:02:31] Speaker C: Oh, we've been wanting to do one of those Canada itineraries. That sounds. Those sound really amazing. Some of those ports are really, really nice.
[01:02:38] Speaker A: Yeah, we had actually looked at that on Disney because Disney did those a few years ago, but they aren't going there anymore. So that's why we picked Holland America. So that one is in September of this year. And then like I said, we have the, the Disney one in January and then next, next May. A year from now, essentially, is when we have the Explora planned.
[01:03:03] Speaker C: So awesome. You've got a lot of cruises on tap coming up. That's amazing.
[01:03:09] Speaker A: I. I always say I'm either on vacation or planning one, right?
[01:03:13] Speaker C: Absolutely. I'm really hoping that Disney's gonna go back to sort of New England and Canada because I would really like to do one of those cruises and I know that I'd be more likely to do it on Disney than anybody else.
But thank you so much for joining us, Craig. It's been great chatting with you. We really appreciate you offering to come on and talk about Seabourn. As we mentioned, this is the only show now that we've ever done talking about Seabourne and it's always great for us and for our listeners to get to hear what else is out there in the cruise space for others out there. If you are a experienced Disney cruiser and you're sailing on somebody else for the first time, please reach out to us and let us know. And if you want to come on the show to talk about it, we'd love to have you come on and talk about it because it's really great for folks in the community and for us to understand what the differences are and what else is out there. So thanks so much, Craig for joining us. We really appreciate it.
[01:04:11] Speaker A: Thank you. I appreciate it too.
[01:04:18] Speaker D: Well, thanks everyone out there for listening this week. We really, really appreciate it. Be sure to subscribe to the podcast. You can keep getting great content from us every week. In fact, twice a week we publish shows. So be sure to hit the subscribe button to get all of those great episodes. And if you want to watch us a lot live, we have a live show now every week, Monday nights, 5:30pm Pacific, 8:30pm Eastern, over on YouTube.com DCLDUO so be sure to head over and check that out. If you want help support the show, be sure to hit those five stars on Apple Podcasts. And if you leave us a written review, a five star written review, we will read it at the top of one of our main episodes. So please head over there and hit those five stars. Of course, you can also help support the show by supporting our fabulous show sponsor My Path Unwinding Travel if you want to book your next Disney vacation, head over to mypathunwinding.com dclduo or email them at dclduomypathunwinding.com so they know we sent you their way. If you've got questions or you'd like to connect with us, the best way to do that is to head over to DCLDuo.com it's got links to all of our things. Full catalog of the podcast episodes including a searchable catalog for the podcast links off to our vlog a link to our Etsy store We sell some fun Fan inspired magnets Link to our Patreon if you'd like to help directly support the show each and every month, just head over to the website or patreon.com DCLDUO also has a way for you to sign up for our substack newsletter that we're hoping to start really pumping out monthly here, at least on a few blog articles that we've written. So DCLDUO.com is the best way to connect with us. You can also of course email
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